


Just until i fall asleep

by Em_is_here



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 18:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21104168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_is_here/pseuds/Em_is_here
Summary: Why sleep alone and have nightmares when you can sleep next to person the nightmare says died?





	Just until i fall asleep

**Author's Note:**

> So i guess this is kinda a fluff fest? 
> 
> I know that certain episodes clearly show that they don't do this but fuck that. This is cuter.

"Will you and Toothless stay a little while? Just until i fall asleep?"

"Of course"

He started the night, just sitting by her, holding her hand so that she would know he was there, Toothless with his head resting on her legs. But his head started to nod an hour later and even though by this point she had fallen asleep, he really didn't want to leave her alone. If she woke up and he was gone, the gods would only know how she would react. So he laid down next to her, hands still joined with Toothless curled around the both of them and slept. 

When he awoke, he did so to a weight on his chest. Cracking an eye open, he saw Astrid, who seemed to have decided that he was a mighty fine pillow at some point in the night, lying wih her head on his chest, looking more relaxed than he had seen her in weeks. Gods, he felt more rested than he had in weeks, even though they had slept on the floor rather than beds.

They were still holding hands, but she had laid her other flat on his chest at some point, his other arm curling around hee back. 

Had it not been for the light spilling under the door of the clubhouse, he would have been content to stay like this forever, but Astrid would kill him for wasting valuable daylight to find Stormfly and the other dragons. 

He woke her, gently, squeezing her hand and back and calling her name.

"Hiccup, what are you doing here, it's the middle of the night?" Came the groggy reply.

"No Astrid, no it's not." It took her a few seconds to remember, but when she did, she started crying. Which in turn broke his heart. He was hesitant to admit it to anyone, even himself but he had been falling for his best friend and second in command as long as he could remember.

So he kissed her forehead and whispered comforts into her ear until she stopped crying.

For the few days it took the storm to break, they repeated this every night. She asked him to stay with her until she fell asleep, he stayed with her until the morning so she wouldn't wake up alone. It made sense to the both of them and helped some of the anxiety Astrid had over never regaining her sight.

What he didn't expect was for Astrid to turn up at his door the say after she regained her sight, and ask if she could stay the night. The darkness scared her, he couldn't cope with the thought that she was blind again alone. Stormfly helped, but she couldn't talk to her, keep the door open so she could see the stars and moonlight and hold her while she cried over her fears. Hiccup could. 

He still didn't expect it the night after or the night after that but eventually she didn't even bother going to her own hut and trying to sleep before she went to his.

It became something that they did because they liked sleeping next to each other and waking up to see whatever tangled embrace they had gotten into in the night.

The other riders, just kind of accepted it? There were a few teasing remarks here and there, but they all ultimately understood that it had started because Astrid needed it to and continued both because they wanted it to as well as needing it to stave off frequent nightmares about the other coming to harm.

Nightmares like the one Hiccup had just woken from, screaming Astrid's name.

She was immediately awake, both of them trained by long nights and repeat performances to wake at the slightest sign of discomfort in the other.

"Shhhhhhh, love. I'm right here. I'm fine. Everyone is all right."

"Astrid?" came the hoarse voice "are you all right? Am i awake now?"

"Yes, love. Yes I'm ok, yes you're awake"

Hiccup sat up, used the moonlight coming through the door that was never shut after dark to look her over for injuries. This night specifically focusing on her neck and abdomen.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Viggo. He held you, threatened you on the volcano again. Except his time when I threw the Dragon eye, he stabbed you. Here," his hand trailed across a patch of smoothish skin to the right of her navel, "then he slit your throat before diving off the edge of the volcano."

She hugged him, let him feel the warmth rolling off of her. Let him feel the pulse of her heart amongst the roaring in his head.

It was then that she heard a whispered, "I watched you die. I watched the life leave your eyes and I watched you fall to the ground and i was rooted to the spot. Not able to get to you. Helpless." Against her neck.

There was the crux of the problem in this dream. This was not the first time he had had it, nor she suspected would it be the last. And it ended roughly the same way every time. What he did had not been enough. She died at Viggo's hand and he could do nothing to prevent it. 

She held him tighter. "But that didn't happen. You threw the dragon eye. You saved me and the monster who threatened me is dead. We will never have to deal with him again. I am safe from him. I promise."

The okay was barely audible, but she got him to relax his grip long enough to lay down on his side with her back pressed against her front. 

They dealt with the nightmares Astrid had differently. They would both wake up to Astrid screaming his name, but once she saw that he was alright from whatever had befallen him - held him close - he would sing softly into her ear and she would fall asleep again, trying to forget the dreams she had.

For the next six months, while they continued to live on the edge, they did this, used each other to fight off nightmares. 

When they got back to Berk, where it was socially frowned upon for them to do it, their nightmares got a whole lot worse. Astrid's most common was where Hiccup was tortured 5 paces away from her and she was unable to do anything, held there and forced to watch him die over the course of days.

Hiccup's most common was to hear Astrid screaming and not being able to see her, her not being able to hear him.

For the first fortnight, they tried desperately to keep to their tribe's traditions, stay separate at night, but the sleep deprivation for both of them, trying to stay awake long after they should be, and then not having the other there to assuage their fears caused several panic attacks.

Then they gave up, started sneaking to each other in secret at night, first just at the other's screams which still woke them up and then returning to their own house, but as on the edge, eventually they didn't bother going to sleep in their own beds, they would both sneak out to the forge and make their bed there and return to their respective houses in the morning.

Which eventually got them caught.

Gobber walked into the forge in the middle of the night, not being able to sleep and having some designs to finish off. He lit a few candles then heared a scream coming from the back room. Nightmares weren't uncommon among the people of Berk, having spent 300 years fighting a never ending war, but who was having one in Hiccup's workshop? 

He walked as quietly as he could to the back, could hear soft voices and someone started singing a lullaby. They were good.

Gobber pushed back the covering Hiccup had placed there to see

"Astrid and Hiccup?"

They both jumped to hear him.

"What're you doing in here after your bedtimes?" 

"Ahh, I can explain. Truly, I can. We were -" Hiccup began in his panicking, rambling voice which was cut off when Astrid put her hand on his arm.

"What we were doing is called sleeping, Gobber. Then I had a nightmare." Astrid knew that no amount of excuses could repair their secret now, so they might as well hope that Gobber wasn't the sharing kind. 

"Well, yes I can see that. But the question I was asking was why were you sleeping and having nightmares side by side in the back of the forge."

"Because the only thing that improves them is to have each other close. That's why we've been so sleep deprived over the past few weeks. We haven't been doing this" Astrid gestured between them. 

"Please, Gobber. Keep it a secret? For us? You know what would happen if this got out." Hiccup piped up, terrified that Astrid would be taken away from him forever because they were found out.

Gobber sank into the small chair in the corner of the room, hand in the curve of his hook. "Alright, you two. But you need to be more careful. Build a door with a lock on here and put another into the back so you can get out if someone comes knocking" the you was directed at Astrid. 

"And for the love of Thor, don't get caught again"

"Yes Gobber."

They spent every night until their marriage in that back room of the forge, keeping the demons who stalked their dreams at bay. Of course, after they were married, there was no need for it, but they still snuck into that back room to have a little privacy when they needed it. But the dark of the night was fought off now in their own bed, in the house Hiccup grew up in. The house their children grew up in. There were a few close calls, Astrid had to use the back escape route a few times but they managed. 

They managed together as they did everything else.


End file.
